Volume 7 - Chapter 15 – What Was in the Ancient Ruins (1/2)

07-15 What Was in the Ancient Ruins

Jin and Reinhardt were in the middle of the pitch black room into which they had broken into.

“[Light].”

Jin used light magic as illumination. With that their surroundings became visible.

“What could this place be…”

Reinhardt posed a question.

The room was a bit large, and only a few old-style desks and chairs had been left behind. The design of the desks and chairs resembled the design that Jin’s predecessor used.

“Isn’t this either an office or the control room?”

Jin also had only a guess to go on.

“But there might be a room beyond this one. Let’s search.”

And so, with the exception of the wall they had punched a hole through, they went to investigate the three walls, ceiling, and the floor. This time a passage was soon found. There was a door on the furthest wall of the room. Althought it had been camouflaged so that you couldn’t tell at a glance.

“Should we try going?”

“Yeah.”

After such a brief exchange, Jin and Reinhardt continued even deeper.

They followed the just unveiled passage for about five meters and there was another door.

“I’ll open it. Jin, you be on your guard.”

Reinhardt said, and as a precaution Jin prepared to fire a spell at any moment.

Then Reinhardt opened the door.

“Uh!?”

Simultaneously with the door opening the room lit up. It seemed that the room’s magic lamps hadn’t stopped working.

“This is…”

What appeared in front of their eyes were empty bookshelves.

“It’s like a storeroom for documents.”

Reinhardt looked over the bookshelves and said his conclusion.

“These were left behind.”

Only two books, made out of parchment-like paper had been simply closed and left behind on the corners of the shelves.

“Is anything written on them?”

Jin decided to try reading. Jin noticed that these books were written in the characters from an ancient era, and he could read even 1000-year-old magical letters.

For the time being, Jin pretended to read them with difficulty, as explaining how he learned to read this would be difficult.

“Fifth…month….23rd day… The invasion…of the devil race….Decision….made to….abandon…the fort….”

It was a record like a journal. Surely something from the time of the Great Magic War. That’s how Reinhardt thought.

“Documents…weapons…food…taken…out…as much as…we could carry”

Jin read aloud while Reinhardt nodded, and he analyzed it.

“I see, so there were too many places to guard from the devil race’s invasion, and this fort was abandoned, is that it? And in so doing, they took out everything important.”

“Just…in case…the hall…of…the Warp Gate…was…covered up”

“Oh, so the ones who hid this were from our side. Conversely now we had trouble finding it though.”

Like Reinhardt said, although the Warp Gate was buried, the future descendants of the same side first digging it up was an ironic tale.

Jin closed the record and,

“Well, nothing important has been written down, really.”

He said, but Reinhardt shook his head and,

“No, It’s a document that approaches the truth of the Great Magic War, even if it’s just a bit. Let’s take it and go.”

Reinhardt said. Taking documents like this from a foreign country’s historic ruins was surely practically a criminal act, but they told themselves that it was preferable to having it fall into the hands of the Unifilers.

“There’s also the option of sending it to King Egelia after translating it.”

While thinking so, Reinhardt put the documents in his pocket.

“Now then, in that case the armory is most likely empty, don’t you agree? Well, let’s just try looking around there too.”

Beyond the storeroom for documents there seemed to be the armory. If you ask why Jin knew that, it’s because that was written on the door.

Because the door had become ancient, or maybe because it had been locked from the inside, in any case no matter how much Jin and Reinhardt pulled the door didn’t open.

As a last resort, Jin called out to Reiko.

“Reiko!”

Reiko who heard Jin’s voice immediately came.